Christmas Crafting & Sewing Part 2 . . . . "The Mouse Family" & Crafting With Sid's Class

Greetings lovely friends & readers

(Apologies in advance - another photo heavy post)

 Instead of a vase of flowers, today we have my vintage wringer washing machine overflowing with fluffy ruffles petunias  💗🤍

When the tree men removed the old Silk tree here, they left my washing machine tipped on its side with one leg broken, where it sat for over a year.  Recently I propped it up with some bricks under the broken leg, scrubbed it & filled with fresh compost & a punnet of petunias.  Much nicer!

It's a dull overcast day here today (which I LoVe) & I'm enjoying the tree lights twinkling away & changing colours.

Longtime readers of my blog may remember that I've tried this year to work my way through the many kitsets that I had on my sewing shelf, some not ever opened.  This Corinne Lapierre felt Mouse Family kit was among them.  I sewed these up back in early October but I'd decided to dress mine in a festive theme.  I used plastic pellets in their bases as they were tricky to get to stand up properly.  

When it came time to decorate I thought they may need their own little table so I could display them properly 🐭🐀

They are all dressed in their Sunday Best & I've woven a little story around them .  .  .  .

Here we have Mrs Mouse dressed in her pearls & festive hat -  she is carrying a wreath & she wants to decorate it with the berries in her hand.  She is tired of Christmas preparations & all the work being left to her  .  .  .  she'd quite like to lie down, have a big nap & wake up on the 1st January next year !

Here we have Mr Mouse in all his finery - Mrs Mouse sent him into the woods to get a tree for the children to decorate.  She can't believe that he has come back with this stupid skinny branch .  .  .  words fail her!  He says it is fine & she just shakes her head & thinks he needs glasses (!!)

And here we have Junior Mr & Junior Miss Mouse - they are all dressed up ready for Christmas festivities & getting into mischief. They are wearing their best outfits & Miss Mouse even has a bow in her tail. 

 

That's as far as I've gotten with my story - I need to think on it some more.   Feel free to add to it in the comments dear friends .  .   . any suggestions gratefully received  😊

This little wooden house was $1.50 in the Salvation Army Op-shop - it was already painted white so I just added a festive transfer to it.  I think it looks sweet with my mice family & a couple of bottlebrush trees.

And then I found this little book amongst my Christmas books.  I purchased this in the Stratford Hospice Shop for 50 cents when I used to visit Mums.  I remember when I came across it & thought I'd found such treasure.  

I'll share a couple of pages - it is immaculate despite being old.  Each page has a lift out surprise & these were all still tucked in there, none were missing.  The lift-out surprises are on the left hand pages & a sweet accompanying picture on the right hand page.  

It is truly just the sweetest little book & I love picking it up & thumbing through it.  

🎄

At the beginning of this term in what I can only describe as a moment of madness, I asked Sid's teacher if she'd like me to do some Christmas crafts with the class.  Of course, she said Yes!  

I spent some time putting together some samples including air-dry clay ornaments, a peat-pot & calico tree, & a paper bag snowflake.  She let the children choose & they all chose the snowflake.  

I used this tutorial * here * ... but changed it as cutting through 9 paper bags was far too thick for the kids so I got them to cut each paper bag individually & we cut ours prior to gluing.

 We had a day doing this in groups of 6 or 7 at a time.  There are 28 children in Sid's class so it took some time & of course, they all worked at different levels.  

Sid, who is still in a plaster cast, was my helper.  I've blocked the kids faces out & also forgot to snap many pics as it was very full on, including supervising using hot glue guns & Yes - some did burn themselves (!!)  

The teacher strung them all up in the classroom when they were finished & they looked wonderful.  

This is my sample above left.  It was a fun day but when I came home I did feel like I needed a rather long nap!! 😉 

I decided I needed to make some Christmas coasters as I wanted to fussy-cut some of the gorgeous Tilda Merry Little Christmas fabric that I'd purchased months ago.  

I used this free pattern from mollyandmama.  The felt I had was too orange-y so I purchased a piece of pure wool felt which would wash better when The Mr slops his mug of tea on them!  

My local sewing shop had this colourway called Holly Berry - how perfect ❤️🍒

I'm delighted with how they turned out & think a pair of these would make great gifts, tied up with ribbon. 

This wooden tree was a $3 op-shop purchase last year - I painted it yesterday & then applied some leftover transfer remnants, before sanding it all over.  I like the vintagey effect of it all.

Thank you so much dear friends, for staying with me through these lengthy catch-up posts,

I hope the lead-up to Christmas is going well for you all,

Sending much love & friendship to you all,